973.7L63 

D2  C54e      Clark,  Daniel 

cop.  2 

Eulogy  on  the  Life  and 
Character  of  Abraham  Lincolm 
...June  1st,  1^65 


L 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


D2,C54e 


£OP  .^- 


f  \  -r—       -W--T      -f-  .-v  ^        -T--T-  '     V- 


EULOGY 


ON 


THE    LIFE    AND    CHARACTER 


OF 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


BEFORE 


THE  CITY  GOVERNMENT  OF  MANCHESTER,  N.  H. 


JUNE    1st,    1865. 


BY    DANIEL    CLARK. 


MANCHESTER,  N.  H. 

MIRROR    STEAM    JOB    PRINTING    ESTABLISHMENT.  p 

\o  n J 

wLn                                i860.  ,  co^ 


x^o'n*,  ^y(;^/ 


Richard  Barksdale  Harwell 


EULOGY 


ON 


THE    LIFE    AND    CHARACTER 


OF 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


BEFORF. 


THE  OITT  GOVEENMENT  OF  MANCHESTEE,  N.  H. 


JUNE    1st,    1865. 


BY    DANIEL    CLARK. 


-•— o— — •- 


MANCHESTER,  N.  H. 

MIRROR    STEAM   JOB    PRINTING   ESTABLISHMENT. 

1865. 


p££-£2-K§\     (aim  I'***1 

I(oUpU°     J/,/t   BEQUEST   C* 

fT^^tU  JANStN  WENDELL 

1918 


CITY   OF   MANCHESTER. 

City  Clerk's  Office,  June  7,  1865. 
Hon.  Daniel  Clark, — 

Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  be  charged  with  communi- 
cating to  you  a  copy  of  a  Resolution  passed  by  the  City  Council 
last  evening : 

Resolved,  by  the  Mayor,  Aldermen,  and  Common  Council  of  the 
City  of  Manchester,  in  City  Council  assembled,  as  follows :  That 
the  thanks  of  the  City  be  tendered  to  the  Hon.  Daniel  Clark,  Sen- 
ator in  Congress  from  this  State,  for  the  very  able  and  eloquent 
Eulogy  pronounced  by  him  before  the  City  Council  and  citizens 
of  Manchester,  upon  the  life  and  character  of  our  late  illustrious 
President,  Abraham  Lincoln,  upon  the  occasion  of  the  late 
National  Fast,  and  that  he  be  requested  to  furnish  a  copy  for 
publication. 

In  accordance  with  the  above  Resolution,  you  are  solicited  to 
furnish  a  copy  of  the  Eulogy  at  your  earliest  convenience. 
By  order  and  in  behalf  of  the  City  Council. 
Yours  very  respectfully, 

J.  E.  BENNETT,   City  Clerk. 


Manchester,  June  7th,  1865. 
J.  E.  Bennett,  Esq., 

City  Clerk  of  Manchester, — 
Dear  Sir  :    I  have  received  your  note  of  this  date,  com- 
municating a  copy  of  the  Resolution  of  the  Mayor  and  Aldermen 
and  Common  Council. 

While  I  cannot  but  feel  that  no  eulogy  can  do  full  and  ample 
justice  to  the  life  and  character  of  our  lamented  President,  I  do 
not  feel  at  liberty  to  disregard  the  wishes  of  the  City  Council  so 
kindly  expressed,  and  I  submit  herewith  a  copy  for  publication. 
Very  truly, 

Your  ob't  serv't, 

DAN'L  CLARK. 


EULOGY. 


The  Winter  and  Spring  of  1861  was  one  of  alarming  anx- 
iety and  of  fearful  forebodings  in  these  United  States.  The 
fabric  of  government  was  tottering,  and  a  house  divided 
against  itself  was  threatening  to  fall.  State  after  State  was 
seceding,  and  declaring  itself,  if  not  hostile  to,  independent 
of  the  Union.  The  citizens  of  such  States  were  seizing 
upon  the  arsenals  and  fortifications  within  their  boundaries, 
and  appropriating  to  a  hostile  purpose  the  arms  and  muni- 
tions of  war  found  therein ;  and  that  the  supply  should  be 
abundant,  the  Secretary  of  War,  with  especial  care  and 
pains-taking,  had  transported  large  quantities  from  Northern 
to  Southern  depots,  and  left  them  with  guards  and  garrisons 
that  could  be  easily  overcome.  Batteries  were  being  reared 
and  guns  mounted  and  shotted  against  forts  still  floating 
the  old  flag,  and  every  preparation  was  being  made  to  cast 
off  the  authority  and  overthrow  a  government  which  had 
conferred  nothing  but  blessings,  and  those  in  plentiful 
supply. 

The  people  of  these  seceding  States  openly  avowed  their 
purpose — a  dismemberment  and  destruction  of  the  Union — 
and  they  as  openly  declared  that  any  attempt  to  maintain 
or  re-establish  the  Federal  government,  or  to  execute  its 
laws  within  their  boundaries,  would  be  promptly  met  with 
force  and  arms  ;  that  they  would  encounter  and  submit  to 
all  the  horrors  and  devastation  of  civil  war  rather  than  sub- 


mit  to  the  rule  of  a  government  they  had  heretofore  admin- 
istered, but  could  no  longer  control. 

The  army  had  been  sent  to  remote  frontiers,  whence  it 
could  not  be  at  once  recalled,  or  gathered  in  Texas,  where 
it  could  easily  be  betrayed  and  surrendered.  The  navy  was 
scattered  in  foreign  seas,  and  the  Secretary  of  War  and  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  were  more  than  suspected  of  medi- 
tating treason  or  of  sympathizing  with  the  conspirators. 
There  were  vague  rumors  that  the  votes  for  President  and 
Vice  President  would  not  be  opened  and  counted  on  the 
day  fixed  by  law ;  that  the  President  elect  would  not  be 
inaugurated,  and  that  by  a  coup  cVetat  the  government  would 
be  seized,  the  chosen  candidates  rejected,  and  usurpers 
installed  in  their  places.  Congress  had  been  unable  to  do 
anything  to  meet  the  crisis.  Each  House  had  appointed 
committees,  proposed  bases  of  settlement,  but  they  had  been 
unable  to  agree  to  anything  satisfactory.  A  Peace  Congress 
was  in  session,  but  it  had  hitherto  failed  in  its  mission,  and 
was  not  likely  to  accomplish  anything  adequate  to  the  emer- 
gency. Missives  and  letters  announced  far  in  advance  that 
nothing  could  be  done,  and  the  lightning  of  the  telegraph 
was  used  to  kindle  the  flames  of  civil  war. 

The  pillars  of  State  were  crashing  down,  as  if  in  the 
grasp  of  some  modern  political  blind  Sampson,  while  amid 
the  confusion  and  uproar  of  civil  commotion,  or  rather  in 
advance  of  much  of  it,  and  as  if  inviting  and  to  make  way 
for  it,  the  piteous  confession  of  the  weak  man  at  the  head  of 
the  government,  he  who  should  have,  and  who  might  have, 
breasted  and  resisted  the  storm,  was  heard — that  this  men- 
ace, this  violence,  this  secession  and  outrage  was  wrong, 
clearly  and  constitutionally  wrong,  but  he  could  not  prevent 
it — that  there  was  "  no  power  to  coerce  a  State  into  submis- 
sion which  was  attempting  to  withdraw,  or  had  actually 
withdrawn  from  the  confederacy." 

In  the  city  of  Washington  this  alarm  was  personal  as  well 
as  general  and  political.     Gen.  Scott  had  summoned  what 


men  he  could  command  to  the  defence  of  the  Capital,  but  they 
were  few  and  far  insufficient,  while  the  secessionists  of  Mary- 
land and  Virginia  daily  threatened  to  seize  the  public  build- 
ings and  all  the  departments  of  the  government.  These  build- 
ings were  filled  with  an  armed  police,  and  ready  at  any  mo- 
ment to  be  barricaded  as  if  in  a  state  of  siege.  Whether  the 
Capital  was  in  a  friendly  or  an  unfriendly  territory  could 
not  well  be  determined.  The  people  of  Washington  were 
divided,  some  loyal,  and  some — more,  perhaps — disloyal ; 
while  many  who,  like  Lee,  had  been  educated  and  supported 
by  the  government,  were  ready  not  only  to  desert  it,  but  to 
assist  its  enemies,  and  by  and  by  to  starve  the  soldiers  of  a 
government  which  had  fed  them.  Men  slept  uneasily  in 
their  beds,  with  arms  within  their  reach,  while  others  patrol- 
led the  streets  with  arms  in  their  hands.  There  was  a 
"  fearful  looking  for  that  which  was  to  come." 

In  the  midst  of  this  alarm  and  these  forebodings,  it  was 
whispered  one  morning  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  in  the 
city ;  that  he  had  come  in  the  darkness  of  the  night  to  escape 
assassination  in  the  city  of  Baltimore !  The  rumor  ran, 
but  men  heard  it  with  a  shake  of  the  head  ;  they  gathered 
in  knots ;  they  mentioned  it  in  low  tones  and  incredulous 
speech.  It  could  not  be  so.  No  one  would  attack  the  chief 
magistrate  elect.  He  was  needlessly  alarmed.  And  even 
his  friends  felt,  perhaps,  that  if  he  had  come  openly  and 
fearlessly,  he  could  have  come  safely.  And  when  the  train 
which  was  regularly  to  have  brought  him  came  through 
Baltimore,  and  was  surrounded  by  fiends,  hooting  and  cry- 
ing, "  Where  is  he  ?"  ready  to  do  violence,  men  would  not 
agree  that  it  was  anything  more  than  a  discourteous  out- 
break of  passion  and  rudeness,  meaning  no  further  harm. 
Men  still  would  not  believe  that  assassination  was  really 
intended.  It  could  not  be  so.  They  knew — some  of  them, 
certainly,  and  all  might  have  known — that  Wigfall  had  sat 
in  the  Senate  chamber  with  the  drawer  of  his  desk  full  of 
cartridges  and  percussion  caps,  and  that  he  had  been  "  put 


8 

up  "  by  his  peers  in  the  Senate  to  insult  Governor  Andrew 
Johnson  of  Tennessee  with  offensive  speech,  hoping  thereby 
to  provoke  a  challenge  and  then  to  kill  him,  because  he,  of 
all  the  Southern  Senators,  was 

"  Faithful  found  among  the  faithless,  faithful  only  he." 

But  they  would  not  believe  any  one  would  assassinate  the 
nation's  chosen.  They  had  not  become  so  used  then  to 
scenes  of  blood,  and  little  knew  of  the  terrible  malignity  of 
those  passions  which  had  been  "  set  on  fire  of  hell."  "  To 
fight  a  duel,"  they  said,  "  was  chivalrous  and  like  the  New 
World,  but  to  strike  with  the  dagger  or  the  bullet  by  stealth 
was  like  the  Old  World  —  dastardly,  cowardly,  mean, 
felonious." 

But,  my  fellow-citizens,  these  doubts  must  now  remove. 
The  great  and  good  man  has  at  last  fallen  by  the  hand  of 
an  assassin,  and  that  assassin  cradled  near  Baltimore.  He 
came  to  Washington  in  a  sleeping  car,  to  escape  death,  and 
that  he  might  perform  the  fearfully  heroic  work  which 
Providence  gave  him  to  do.  He  has  gone  from  Washington 
— his  work  done — in  a  car,  sleeping  that  long  sleep  from 
which  he  shall  not  awaken  until  the  reveille  of  that  morning 
when  the  great  Commander-in-Chief  shall  summon  all 
earth's  army  corps  to  their  last  review. 

When  he  left  Springfield,  his  neighbors  gathered  about 
him,  and,  as  he  asked  their  prayers,  they  almost  fell  upon 
his  neck  and  wept  sore,  as  did  the  early  Christians  upon 
Paul's  when  he  went  to  Jerusalem,  not  knowing  what  should 
befall  him  there.  Now  again  they  have  assembled  around 
him  at  his  home,  but  in  sorrowing,  in  anguish  and  in  tears, 
to  commit  him  to  his  burial.  "  May  you  die  among  your 
kindred"  was  the  prayer  of  Eastern  poetry.  He  died  far 
from  home,  by  the  assassin's  hand,  in  the  most  tempestuous 
times,  but  his  neighbors  have  laid  him  tenderly  to  rest  upon 
the  "  prairie  bosom  of  his  adopted  Illinois."  He  went  forth 
whither  he  would ;  he  has  returned  whither  he  was  borne. 


9 

He  directed  armies  and  navies,  and  launched  the  fiery  bolts 
of  war  upon  the  rebel  enemies  of  his  country  ;  ostensibly 
he  held  the  lives  of  thousands  in  his  hands ;  but  death 
pointed  the  way  with  his  pale  finger,  and  he  has  gone  and 
taken  his  place  in  the  "  silent  halls." 

Come  now,  ye  that  mourn,  ye  have  seen  how  mercilessly 
he  was  slain !  and  with  what  "  pomp  and  circumstance  of 
woe,"  with  what  crowds  and  tears  and  long  processions  they 
have  borne  a  nation's  chief  to  his  grave  ;  come  now,  and  see 
with  what  merciless,  relentless  precision  retributive  justice 
tracks  the  murderer  to  his  doom. 

Silently  Booth  entered  the  theatre  at  a  side  door,  his 
horse  held  ready  for  him  without.  He  passed  around  on  the 
outside  of  the  audience  and  entered  the  passage  to  the  fatal 
box.  The  carpenter  of  the  theatre  had  prepared  and  fitted 
a  bar  so  that,  when  he  had  shut,  he  could  fasten  the  door 
of  the  passage  behind  him,  that  no  one  might  enter  to  inter- 
rupt or  prevent  his  murderous  work.  There  he  was,  with 
pistol  and  dagger.  He  could  see  his  victim,  but  his  victim 
did  not  see  him.  Approaching  unseen,  he  discharged  the 
deadly  contents  into  the  head  of  the  President.  Brandish- 
ing his  dagger,  or  knife,  and  striking  it  full  five  inches  deep 
into  the  arm  of  Major  Rathbone,  who  opposed  his  progress, 
he  leaped  through  the  window  of  the  box  down  upon  the 
stage,  theatrically  exclaiming, "  Sic  semper  tyrannis."  He 
passed  across  the  stage,  he  reached  the  door,  he  mounted 
his  horse,  he  is  gone.  So  far  he  is  master  of  the  situation. 
Shall  he  escape  ? 

The  Eye  that  marks  the  sparrow's  fall  beheld  as  well  that 
leap  upon  the  stage.  Who  placed  that  starry  flag  around 
the  Presidential  box,  that  it  should  be  over  the  President 
when  he  fell  ?  See,  it  has  caught  the  assassin  by  the  spur — 
it  holds  him  for  a  moment — it  brings  him  heavily  to  the 
stage.  His  leg  is  broken  by  the  falling  leap.  No,  he  shall 
not  escape — that  flag,  which  the  President  in  his  life  had  so 
bravely  and  constantly  upheld,  now  has  made  certain  the 

2 


10 

capture  of  his  assassin.  He  fled,  however,  he  and  Harold, 
across  the  Anacostia  Bridge  into  Maryland,  through  Marl- 
boro' to  Leonardstown,  and  thence  into  the  swamps  of  that 
flat  region. 

And  now  the  President  is  dead.  He  lies  in  splendid  state 
at  the  Presidential  mansion,  and  in  the  rotunda  of  the  Cap- 
itol, under  the  magnificent  statue  of  Liberty,  which  a  few 
days  before  had  witnessed  his  inauguration  ;  while  his  mur- 
derer, concealed  in  swamps,  wet,  shivering,  cold,  hungry, 
half  starved,  now  and  then  steals  out  to  buy  a  bit  of  bread, 
or  potato,  or  piece  of  ham,  of  some  sympathizing  rebel  who 
dares  not  harbor  the  outlaw,  wherewith  to  baffle  absolute 
starvation. 

Now  they  bear  the  body  of  the  President  to  Baltimore. 
He  lies  again  in  state  where  four  years  before  they  would 
have  killed  him. 

Booth  crosses  the  Potomac — the  Rappahannock.  He  takes 
refuge  in  a  barn,  broken-legged  and  weary.  His  pursuers 
have  marked  his  track.  They  surround  the  building.  They 
demand  his  surrender.  He  refuses  and  defies  them.  They 
set  it  on  fire,  as  if  to  kindle  about  him  the  flames  of  hell 
while  he  lived.  The  flames  crackle,  and  scorch  him  ;  he  is 
driven  forward  by  the  fire  and  backward  by  those  who  seek 
him.  Harold  surrenders,  and  he  curses  him  to  his  teeth ; 
he  will  not  yield  ;  he  defies  capture  alive. 

When  Massachusetts  men  marched  through  Baltimore 
the  19th  of  April,  1861,  Maryland  men  shot  them  down  in 
the  street,  and  now,  when  a  Maryland  man  has  killed  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  a  Massachusetts  man  by 
adoption — Boston  Corbett — with  fatal  precision,  hits  him  in 
the  head,  and  in  the  same  side  of  it,  and  almost  in  the  same 
place  where  he  hit  his  victim.  He  yields  ;  he  falls ;  they 
pick  him  up  and  bear  him  to  the  air,  and,  in  the  agony  of 
his  death,  then  opens  upon  him  the  terrible  enormity  of  his 
crime,  and  he  exclaims,  "  It  is  useless  !  useless !"  They 
carry  him  to  Washington,  and  he  lies  aboard  an  iron-clad, 


11 

awaiting  such  a  disposition  as  the  ministers  of  justice  may 
award. 

Now  they  bear  on  the  President  to  his  tomb,  they  lay  him 
in  his  grave,  and  thousands  crowd  to  see  where  they  have 
laid  him.  In  his  jeweled  coffin,  with  flowers,  and  plumes, 
and  costly  drapery,  they  lay  him  to  his  rest.  "  Within  a 
century  no  man's  death  has  excited,"  says  an  English 
paper,  "  such  deep  emotions  or  created  so  wide  and  univer- 
sal a  sensation  ;  around  no  man's  bier  within  that  time  havo 
so  many  persons  truly  mourned  or  so  many  tears  been  shed." 
His  urn  is  a  mighty  nation's  heart.  Costly  marbles  shall 
mark  the  spot  where  rests  the  emancipator  of  a  race  and  the 
savior  of  his  country. 

But  the  body  of  Booth — two  men  wrapped  it  in  a  gray 
army  blanket ;  by  night  they  placed  it  in  a  boat ;  they  rowed 
out  into  the  darkness.  It  is  all  that  is  known.  From  that 
dark  unknown  there  comes  no  sound  to  tell  whither  he  has 
gone,* or  where  he  lies.  Whether  he  rots  in  earth  or  is 
nibbled  and  gnawed  by  the  fishes  of  the  river,  bay,  or  sea, 
with  a  shot  or  cannon  or  mill-stone  to  his  neck,  who  can 
tell  ?  Hunted  like  a  wolf,  shot  down  like  a  dog,  the  place  of 
his  burial  let  none  know.  So  perish  every  one  who  shall 
strike  at  his  country's  life  or  its  chosen  head,  and  ever  thus 
may  come  the  remorseful,  bitter,  unavailing  cry — "  It  is 
useless,  useless." 

Let  us  not,  however,  in  our  indignation  against  Booth 
and  his  active  participators,  overlook  the  real  assassin  and 
the  real  author  of  this  crime.  Booth  was  but  an  agent,  an 
instrument.  Slavery  and  the  slave  power  bid  the  President 
die,  and  was  the  instigator  of  the  hellish  wickedness.  It 
conceived  the  mazy,  multifarious  plot,  embracing  and  entan- 
gling Lincoln,  and  Johnson,  and  Seward,  and  Stanton,  and 
Grant  in  a  web  of  death.  It  fired  Booth's  brain,  it  steeled 
his  heart,  it  nerved  his  arm,  it  looked  out  of  his  eyes,  it 
loaded,  it  aimed,  it  discharged  the  fatal  weapon,  it  sent  the 
bullet  crashing  through  the  skull  and  into  the  brain  of  the 


12 

President,  it  stole  consciousness,  it  induced  stupor,  it  closed 
his  eyes,  and  it  "  sent  him  away." 

I  do  not  now  refer  to  any  alleged  participation  Davis,  or 
Thompson,  or  Tucker,  or  Saunders  may  have  had  in  the 
particular  acts  or  designs  of  the  immediate  actors  ;  for  they, 
too,  were  the  agents  and  instruments  of  this  all-absorbing, 
monopolizing  pest ;  but  I  refer  to  the  pest  itself — that  great 
commanding  interest  and  power  in  whose  behalf,  and  to 
make  which  perpetual,  the  rebellion  was  instituted,  and  this 
cruel  civil  war  was  forced  on  the  country  ;  which  murdered 
our  men  in  its  outset  at  Baltimore,  and  Ellsworth  at  Alex- 
andria ;  which  played  havoc  at  Bull  Run  ;  which  dug  up 
dead  bodies  of  the  slain,  burned  their  flesh,  made  baccha- 
nalian cups  of  their  skulls ;  which  brooded  pestilence  and 
malaria  in  the  Chickahominy ;  which  showed  no  mercy  at 
Fort  Pillow ;  which  guarded  Libby  and  Castle  Thunder ; 
which  stole  blankets,  clothing  and  money  from  captured 
men ;  which  laid  them  on  the  freezing  ground  with  bare 
heads  and  feet,  without  house  or  shelter ;  which  stalked 
about  Belle  Isle,  gloating  in  the  misery  it  could  inflict ;  and 
which  in  the  gaunt  form  and  guise  of  famine  went  among 
the  men  at  Salisbury,  and  Columbia,  and  Andersonville,  and 
Florence,  and  with  its  skinny  fingers  held  the  platter  of 
starvation  to  their  famished  mouths,  and  anon  came  with 
the  dead  cart,  and  picking  up  the  bodies  as  they  lay  here 
and  there  where  they  had  crawled  to  die,  tumbled  them  in, 
carted  them  away,  and  "  dumped  "  them  into  some  hole  or 
ditch,  first  to  blacken,  then  to  waste,  and  then  to  bleach ; 
nay,  to  be  picked  by  the  buzzards,  and  gnawed  by  the  prowl- 
ing beasts  of  night !  It  murdered  your  soldiers,  your  sons, 
brothers,  husbands,  fathers.  It  has  now  murdered  your 
President,  your  twice  chosen,  in  the  hour  of  his  and  your 
triumph,  and  of  its  defeat.  Twice,  certainly,  it  had  sought 
his  life  before — at  Baltimore,  and  at  the  second  inauguration 
— for  he  had  been  slavery's  sturdiest  foe ;  he  wielded  all  free- 
dom's artillery  ;  he  had  struck  the  chains  from  four  millions 


13 

of  its  victims,  and  had  set  his  face  for  its  utter  and  entire 
extirpation  from  every  State  and  every  Territory. 

Shall  Booth,  then,  die,  and  slavery  live  ?  Shall  the  agent 
perish  and  the  principal  survive  ?  Will  you  lament  and  weep 
over  the  effect,  and  retain  and  cherish  the  cause  ?  Will  men 
hang  the  drapery  of  mourning  about  their  doors  and  in  their 
windows  for  the  President  slain,  and  still  plead  for,  or  excuse 
an  institution  which  sought  his  life  from  the  day  of  his  first 
election  to  the  day  of  his  death,  which  it  finally  accom- 
plished ?  Then  are  your  tears  vain,  your  habiliments  of 
sorrow  a  mockery,  for  ye  will  not  cast  away  that  which  is 
the  cause  of  your  sorrow. 

My  fellow-citizens,  looking  at  this  strange  scene  of  vio- 
lence and  assassination — at  its  cause  and  progress,  one  can 
hardly  realize  that  he  is  passing  through  an  actual  occur- 
rence ;  but  he  fancies  he  is  reading  a  page  from  the  history 
of  the  Old  World,  and  a  past  age.  Monarchs  and  princes 
of  the  Eastern  continent  have  been  assassinated,  but  never 
before  a  President  of  the  United  States.  History  is  said  to 
reproduce  itself,  and  many  of  the  circumstances  in  the  death 
of  the  Prince  of  Orange  in  1684  are  wonderfully  like  those 
in  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  1865.  But  in  one  re- 
spect they  are  widely  different.  William  the  Silent  fell 
when  his  country  could  illy  spare  him,  and  his  last  words 
were  :  "  0,  my  God,  have  mercy  on  this  poor  people  !"  Mr. 
Lincoln  died  in  the  hour  of  his  triumph,  when  the  war  was 
substantially  ended,  the  confederacy  broken,  and  their  capi- 
tal captured.  Beyond  the  horror  and  grief  of  such  an 
occurrence,  the  country  received  no  shock.  His  successor 
stepped  into  his  place  and  the  government  was  not  staggered. 
All  its  functions  were  undisturbed,  and  not  even  the  flow  of 
money  into  the  coffers  of  the  Treasury  checked.  Mr.  Lincoln 
fell  as  a  strong  swimmer  is  cngulphed  in  the  ocean.  He 
sank,  the  waves  closed  over  him,  and  still  rolled  on  in  their 
majesty  and  strength,  as  if  there  were  no  sleeper  beneath. 
The  government  still  bears  on  in  all  its  offices  and  depart- 


14 

ments,  exhibiting  to  the  world,  without  interregnum,  its 
strength  and  its  perpetuity. 

What  a  spectacle  to  the  Old  World,  where  the  violent 
death  of  a  ruler  has  been  made  the  occasion  of  overthrow- 
ing the  government,  proscribing  its  greatest  statesmen, 
supplying  victims  to  the  gallows  or  guillotine,  and  advancing 
the  fortunes  of  some  more  despotic  adventurer.  Our  leader 
falls,  but  there  is  no  shock  to  the  machinery  of  the  govern- 
ment, no  stoppage,  no  collision,  no  crash  ;  but  under  a  new 
conductor  the  great  train  moves  on,  with  no  displacement  of 
switch  or  change  of  route,  to  the  great  depot  of  restored 
peace  and  freedom  to  all  races  beneath  the  flag. 

There  is  an  old  maxim :  "  Say  nothing  of  the  dead  but 
what  is  good."  "  De  mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum."  Some  lin- 
guists read  it :  Say  nothing  of  the  dead  but  what  is  true. 
De  mortuis  nil  nisi  verum.  I  accept  on  this  occasion  both 
readings.  There  was  so  much  that  was  good  and  at  the 
same  time  true,  and  so  much  that  was  true  and  at  the  same 
time  good,  in  the  life  and  character  which  we  are  to  con- 
template, that  it  may  invite  eulogy  or  challenge  criticism. 

The  early  personal  history  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  remarka- 
ble. His  was  one  of  the  many  instances  where  a  boy  of 
strong  traits  pushes  himself  up  under  great  difficulties, 
surmounts  every  obstacle,  gains  notoriety,  perhaps  achieves 
renown,  and  then  dies,  leaving  a  most  salutary  example,  and 
the  memory  of  a  great  and  good  life.  So  as  I  have  seen  a 
plant  force  itself  up  through  the  frozen  earth,  or,  it  may  be, 
ice  in  the  garden,  where  it  was  not  expected,  and  grow,  and 
bud,  and  blossom,  and  fill  the  air  with  fragrance. 

He  was  born  of  humble  and  obscure,  but  worthy  parents, 
in  Kentucky,  February  12,  1809.  He  was  of  Quaker 
origin.  His  grand-parents  lived  in  Pennsylvania,  thence  the 
family  went  to  Virginia,  and  thence  into  Kentucky.  His 
mother  seems  to  have  been  a  Christian  woman,  for  she  much 
desired  her  son  should  learn  to  read  the  Bible,  a  book  with 
which  in  after  life  he  made  himself  familiar.     His   father, 


15 

feeling  often  the  need  of  a  better  education  himself,  did 
what  his  limited  opportunities  would  allow  for  his  son ;  but 
not  much  could  be  achieved  without  a  teacher,  in  a  forest 
home  to  which  they  were  obliged  for  miles  to  cut  a  new 
road  as  they  went.  His  youth  was  spent  in  poverty  and 
toil.  His  education,  says  Lanman,  was  limited.  He  spent 
two  years  at  school  in  Strafford  county,  Virginia,  and  after- 
wards taught  school,  and  studied  law  in  Culpepper  county, 
in  the  same  State.  He  removed  to  Indiana  in  1816,  and 
Illinois  in  1830.  At  one  time  he  was  a  boatman,  then  an 
agriculturist.  At  another  time  he  was  a  postmaster  in  a 
small  village,  and  at  some  time  kept  a  small  store.  He 
seems  to  have  been  industrious,  and  did  what  his  hands 
could  find  to  do.  He  was  a  persevering  young  man,  im- 
proving his  mind,  and  with  good,  if  not  high  aims.  He  was 
afterwards  a  captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  war,  and  for  four 
years  a  member  of  the  Illinois  Legislature.  He  commenced 
the  practice  of  Law  at  Springfield  in  that  State,  and  was  a 
member  of  the  convention  which  nominated  Zachary  Taylor 
for  President.  He  belonged  to  the  old  whig  school  of 
politics,  and  was  a  member  of  Congress  from  1847  to  1849, 
one  Congress. 

In  1856  his  name  was  presented  to  the  Republican  Con- 
vention by  his  friends  for  Vice  President,  but  Mr.  Dayton 
received  the  nomination.  In  1858  he  canvassed  the  State 
of  Illinois  as  a  candidate  for  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
against  Mr.  Douglas  ;  and  there  exhibiting  those  remarkable 
traits  which  so  much  distinguished  him,  he  won  a  national 
reputation.  Judge  Douglas  was  a  very  able  debater,  a 
sagacious  politician,  full  of  expedients,  a  fearless  champion, 
a  difficult  man  to  catch,  and  a  worse  one  to  hold.  Mr. 
Lincoln  showed  himself  fully  able  to  deal  with  him.  He 
planted  himself  at  once  on  a  higher  ground  than  his  adver- 
sary occupied,  maintained  it  with  so  much  ability  that  he 
could  not  be  driven  from  it ;  and  if  he  lost  the  Senatorship, 
he  won  the  Presidency,  for  it  was  that  splendid  contest,  and 


16 

the  masterly  manner  he  waged  it,  which  made  him  the 
candidate  of  the  Republicans  in  1860. 

It  was  at  the  beginning  of  this  campaign  that  he  opened 
his  speech  with  the  afterwards  celebrated  declaration,  "  A 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe  this 
government  cannot  endure  permanently,  half  slave  and  half 
free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved.  I  do  not 
expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be 
divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other." 
Little  did  he  then  think  how  soon  that  point  would  be  at- 
tained, nor  through  what  bloody  scenes  we  should  reach  it. 

The  personal  appearance  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  prepos- 
sessing. Many  of  you  have  seen  him,  and  need  no  descrip- 
tion. His  figure  was  tall,  his  limbs  large,  and,  as  some  one 
said  of  Chief  Justice  Marshall's,  hung  loosely  as  if  strung 
on  wires.  His  muscles  were  small,  joints  angular,  features 
large  and  marked,  motions  ungraceful,  posture  unseemly, 
and  his  carriage  and  general  appearance  undignified. 

But  with  all  this  roughness  of  exterior,  he  had  a  charac- 
ter of  singular  goodness,  beauty,  and  force.  He  combined 
qualities  seemingly  so  different  as  to  make  analysis  difficult. 
He  was  mirthful  as  a  child  ;  gentle  as  a  woman  ;  resolute  as 
a  man ;  sagacious  as  a  statesman ;  grave  as  a  judge ;  and 
merciful  as  an  angel  of  Heaven.  His  virtues  were  many 
and  his  faults  few,  and  they  all  inclining  to  virtue's  side. 
There  was  an  apparent  complexity  of  character,  and  yet, 
such  was  its  wondrous  simplicity,  or  rather  transparency, 
that  one  could  not  be  with  him  a  single  half  hour  and  not 
feel  that  he  was  a  man  upon  whom  the  utmost  reliance 
could  be  placed ;  that  said  what  he  thought,  and  meant 
what  he  said. 

He  was  at  times  reticent,  as  he  was  obliged  to  be  by  the 
circumstances  in  which  he  was  placed  ;  but,  if  he  said  any- 
thing, you  never  were  deceived  by  it.  Even  men  who  failed 
to  get  office  at  his  hands  never  complained  that  he  had 
promised  and  did  not  fulfil. 


There  are  some  men  you  are  never  easy  with — that  you 
never  can  rely  upon.  They  approach  you  walking  back- 
wards ;  they  say  what  they  do  not  mean ;  they  work  by 
contraries ;  meet  you  going  the  other  way ;  shake  hands 
behind  their  backs,  and  under  a  fair  exterior  are  full  of 
deceit  and  duplicity.  Their  yea  is  not  yea,  nor  their  nay, 
nay ;  but  their  yea  is  nay,  and  their  nay,  yea ;  and  they  are  so 
selfish  that  they  will  take  advantage  of  an  act  of  kindness 
and  return  an  injury,  if  it  will  do  them  any  good. 

Upon  the  battle-field  at  Antietam  lay  a  wounded  Union 
soldier.  He  was  shot  stone  blind.  The  ball  entered  about 
an  inch  back  of  the  angle  of  the  right  eye,  passed  behind 
it,  severing  the  optic  nerve,  and  went  out  at  the  other  eye, 
completely  demolishing  it.  Eternal  night  had  settled  down 
upon  him,  but  otherwise  he  was  uninjured.  He  could  talk, 
he  could  hear,  he  could  walk,  but  he  could  not  see.  Pres- 
ently he  heard  some  one  near  him — another  wounded  man. 
"Who  are  you?"  said  he.  "A  wounded  man,"  was  the 
reply.  "  Where  ?"  "  In  the  leg — it  is  broken."  "  Can  you 
see  ?"  said  the  first  man.  "  Yes,"  said  the  other,  "  I  can 
see  well  enough,  but  I  cannot  walk."  "  Well,"  said  the 
blind  soldier,  "  I  can  walk,  and  if  I  can  get  to  you  and  get 
you  on  my  shoulders,  you  can  be  eyes  for  me,  and  I  will  be 
legs  for  you,  and  we  will  get  off  the  field  together."  He  did  so. 
He  placed  the  man  with  the  broken  leg  on  his  shoulders, 
and  he  told  him  which  way  to  go,  and  they  started ;  and 
"  be  darned,"  said  the  man,  relating  the  occurrence  to  me 
at  Judiciary  Square  Hospital,  "  if  the  rascal  didn't  steer  me 
right  into  a  rebel  camp,  and  I  was  a  prisoner  for  my  act  of 
benevolence," 

But  no  such  man  was  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  practiced 
no  deceit.  He  was  shrewd  and  sagacious,  but  he  would  not 
mislead.     He  never  carried  a  blind  man  into  a  ditch. 

Have  you  sometimes,  upon  some  clear,  deep  lake,  gazed 
down  into  its  pure  depths,  and  strained  your  eyes  to  discern 
the  bottom  ?    Now  you  could  see  it,  and  again,  passing  over 
3 


18 

some  deeper  place  you  could  not,  for  the  very  depth;  but 
still  the  water  was  transparent,  and  clear,  and  pure ; 
only  the  great  depth  prevented  you  from  seeing  the  sand 
and  rocks  below.  Or  have  you  rode  beside  some  stream 
of  a  clear  day,  or  evening,  and  seen  mirrored  in  its  bosom 
the  trees  and  bushes  on  its  banks,  or,  it  may  be,  the  stars  of 
night  ?  Such  was  his  character.  You  might  gaze  deep 
down  to  its  very  bottom,  and  it  was  still  pure.  If  there 
was  anything  you  did  not  comprehend,  it  was  because  you 
did  not  sound  its  depths.  Or  you  might  watch  its  surface, 
and  it  would  reveal  to  you  in  beautiful  tracery  all  the  cir- 
cumstances by  which  it  was  surrounded.  And  if  at  times 
the  tempest  howled,  the  winds  blew,  and  the  lake  and  stream 
were  ruffled,  and  the  waves  run,  and  you  could  neither  gaze 
into  its  depths,  nor  behold  the  pictures  reflected  from  its 
surface,  you  knew  the  water  was  still  pure,  and  would  be 
again  clear  when  the  waves  had  subsided. 

His  love  of  truth  was  remarkable.  It  could  not  well  be 
otherwise — a  character  so  good  in  itself  could  not  be  false 
to  others;  because  if  dishonest  and  untrue  to  others,  it 
must  be  dishonest  and  untrue  to  itself.  A  misstatement  or 
a  concealment  seemed  to  trouble  him.  Perhaps  I  shall  be 
pardoned  for  an  illustration  somewhat  personal. 

During  the  six  or  seven  days  retreat  from  the  Chicka- 
hominy  to  Harrison's  Landing  the  public  anxiety  was  ex- 
treme. It  was  particularly  so  at  Washington.  There  were 
rumors  of  battles,  of  defeat,  of  destruction  of  property  and 
retreat,  but  no  one  could  learn  or  affirm  with  certainty  what 
had  happened. 

The  retreat  began,  I  think,  on  Friday.  So  great  on  Tues- 
day following  was  the  anguish  of  suspense,  that  I  deter- 
mined to  go  the  next  morning  to  the  war  office,  and  see 
what  information  I  could  gather.  I  did  so  early  Wednesday. 
I  found  Mr.  Stanton  and  the  President  closeted  together. 
The  latter  evidently  sad  and  in  much  dejection.  After  ex- 
changing salutations,  I  said,  "  I  have  come,  gentlemen,  to 


19 

learn  the  news.  Have  you  any  ?"  "  None,"  said  they. 
"Have  you  no  news?"  I  repeated.  "  None,"  said  they 
again,  "  if  you  have,  we  shall  be  glad  to  hear  it." 

"  Mr.  President,"  said  I,  "  this  suspense  is  well  nigh  in- 
supportable, and  if  at  this  late  day  you  have  no  news  from 
the  army,  I  shall  begin  to  be  discouraged." 

"  Mr.  Clark,"  said  the  President,  with  a  look  I  shall  never 
forget,  "  I  am  sorry  you  came  in  here,  for  when  a  Senator 
says  he  is  discouraged,  I  am  discouraged  too." 

"Mr.  President,"  said  I,  "you  know  I  am  your  friend 
and  the  friend  of  your  administration.  I  would  not  dis- 
courage you.  I  would  work  for  you  and  the  country  until 
nothing  is  left  of  me." 

"  That's  the  talk,"  said  the  Secretary,  catching  ine  by  the 
hand,  "  that's  the  talk." 

"  Come,"  said  the  President,  "  sit  down  by  me  and  let  me 
tell  you."  I  did  so,  and  he  told  me  what  he  knew  of  the 
fearful  disaster.     We  talked  an  hour. 

The  disinclination  of  the  President  to  tell  me  what  had 
happened,  the  declaration  that  there  was  no  news,  made  no 
particular  impression  on  me  at  the  time.  It  was  overlayed 
and  obliterated  by  the  great  events  transpiring.  But  not  so 
with  him.  He  would  never  forget  it,  and  more  than  once, 
a  year  or  two  afterward,  when  I  called  to  see  him,  he  would 
say,  "  Come  in,  Mr.  Clark.  You  are  the  man  to  whom  I 
came  nearer  telling  a  lie  than  to  any  other  man  in  my  life. 
The  truth  is,  affairs  were  so  bad  I  did  not  at  first  dare  to 
tell  you." 

But  in  full  measure  with  his  sincerity  and  his  truth,  was 
his  kindness  of  heart.  No  one  could  appeal  to  him  in  vain, 
unless  the  most  stringent  public  necessity  compelled  him 
otherwise.  Mercy  was  the  quality  he  loved  most,  and  mercy 
to  his  foes  as  well  as  to  his  friends.  He  would  pardon  the 
criminal  and  the  deserter,  and  often,  perhaps  too  often,  let 
the  rebel  go.  His  door-keepers  had  standing  orders  from 
him,  (no  matter  how  great  might  be  the  pressure  for  ad- 


20 

mittance) — if  Senators  and  Representatives  had  to  be 
turned  away  without  an  audience — he  must  see,  before  the 
day  closed,  every  messenger  who  came  to  him  praying  that 
some  condemned  life  might  be  saved.  He  would  have  no 
account  of  blood  to  settle.  "  Some  of  our  generals  com- 
plain," said  he,  "  that  I  impair  discipline  and  subordination 
in  the  army,  by  my  pardons  and  respites ;  but  it  makes  me 
rested  after  a  hard  day's  work,  if  I  can  find  some  good  ex- 
cuse for  saving  a  man's  life,  and  I  go  to  bed  happy  as  I 
think  how  joyous  the  signing  of  my  name  will  make  him 
and  his  family  and  friends." 

This  kindness  was  the  natural  growth  of  his  noble  heart. 
It  sprang  neither  from  policy  or  education,  but  out  of  the 
virgin  soil.  When  some  friends  would  say  to  him  that  they 
wished  he  had  a  little  more  of  Jackson's  sternness,  he  would 
lift  his  beaming  face  and  reply,  "  I  am  just  as  God  made 
me,  and  cannot  change."  Of  all  that  he  ever  said  or  wrote, 
nothing  will  be  remembered  so  long  or  so  fondly  as  that 
already  celebrated  declaration  of  his  second  inaugural: 
"  With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firm- 
ness in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  ns 
strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in ;  to  bind  up  the  na- 
tion's wounds,  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the 
battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  his  orphans,  to  do  all  which 
may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace  among 
ourselves  and  with  all  nations."  It  was  sublimely  uttered. 
There  he  stood  beneath  the  dome  of  the  Capitol ;  for  four 
years  his  administration  had  been  made  a  road  of  cares  and 
thorns  by  the  enemies  of  his  country  ;  they  had  sought  his 
life  and  that  of  his  nation ;  they  had  maligned  him  abroad 
and  abused  him  at  home  ;  they  had  called  him  "  tyrant," 
"  usurper,"  "  baboon ;"  they  had  made  his  nights  sleepless  and 
his  days  anguish  ;  they  had  wasted  property  and  shed  blood. 
His  native  Kentucky  was  ravaged  and  wasted,  and  his 
adopted  Illinois  in  mourning  for  her  loved  and  lost.  They 
had  trampled  on  the  flag.     He  remembered  Sumter,  and 


21 

Bull  Run,  and  Fredericksburg,  and  Chancellorville,  and 
Chickamauga,  and  still  there  was  "  malice  for  none."  And 
now  the  tide  had  turned,  and  had  swept  from  Gettysburg 
and  Vicksburg,  surging  up  Lookout  Mountain  and  Mission- 
ary Ridge,  and  down  upon  Dalton  and  into  Atlanta,  till  it 
met  the  ocean  at  Savannah,  and 'turning,  rushed  through 
the  swamps,  and  lashed  up  the  hill-sides  of  the  Carolinas — 
and  again  it  had  swept  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  down  through 
the  Wilderness  and  Spottsylvania,  across  the  James,  and 
around  Petersburg  and  Richmond,  and  the  end  of  the  re- 
bellion had  well  nigh  come.  He  stood  a  nation's  saviour, 
triumphant  over  his  foes,  a  victor,  and  his  large  heart  was 
filled  "  with  charity  for  all." 

"  For  Abraham  Lincoln,"  observes  the  same  English 
paper,  "  a  cry  of  regret  will  be  raised  all  over  the  civilized 
world."  But  if  I  mistake  not,  they  will  regret  him  most 
who  slew  him.  The  world  mourns  at  his  bier  ;  but,  though 
late,  none  will  mourn  more  bitterly  than  they  who  will 
need  his  great  mercy  to  pardon  their  offences. 

As  they  bare  him  to  his  last  rest,  poverty  in  its  rags,  labor 
with  its  hard  hand,  and  wealth  with  its  abundance  and  ease, 
came  and  melted  into  tears  by  the  side  of  the  rumbling 
hearse.  But  more  scalding  will  be  the  tears  of  those  who 
weep  over  the  falling  fortunes  of  the  rebellion,  for  high 
among  the  mottoes,  there  appeared  on  the  sides  of  the  build- 
ings by  which  the  procession  went,  with  prophetic  signifi- 
cance— like  that  hand-writing  on  the  wall  which  made 
Belshazzar's  knees  tremble — "  Mercy  is  slain,  but  Justice 
still  lives." 

Through  the  crushed  bones  and  brains  of  the  President 

the  people  see  more  clearly  the  deep  malignity  of  the  leaders 

of  the  rebellion,  and  they  will  demand  for  them  a  sterner 

doom. 

Some  one  quaintly  remarked  that  Mr.  Lincoln  tempered 

judgment  with  mercy,  but  that  his  successor  would  temper 

mercy  with  judgment. 

%** 
"I/a,    -*s'ry 
*°i$ ,    YoF 

UB»A*y 


22 

Mercy  to  traitors,  he  has  said  with  great  force  and  preg- 
nant meaning,  may  be  cruelty  to  the  nation.  Sometimes  it 
has  seemed  to  be  so. 

A  blockade-running  pilot  was  captured  and  confined  in 
Fort  Delaware.  His  friends  appealed  to  the  President  for 
his  release.  They  told  of  his  penitence  and  suffering 
family.  He  let  him  go — to  pilot  to  our  shores  more  guns 
and  more  ammunition,  wherewith  to  slay  more  of  the  Union 
defenders. 

Union  prisoners  starved  in  hospitals  and  prisons.  They 
lingered  from  day  to  day,  pining,  longing  for  something  to 
eat,  until  flesh  and  strength  departed,  and  their  projecting 
eye-balls  glared  on  vacancy,  and  forgetting  their  own  names, 
they  sat  around  and  chattered  on  the  ground  like  so  many 
monkeys ;  and  when  this  enormous,  revolting,  fiendish  con- 
duct was  brought  to  his  notice,  such  was  the  tenderness  of 
his  heart,  no  persuasions,  no  entreaties  of  friends,  no  urgency 
of  the  public  service  (though  he  loved  the  soldier,  and  said, 
"  How  willingly  would  I  exchange  places  to-day  with  the 
soldier  who  sleeps  on  the  ground  in  the  Army  of  the  Poto- 
mac") could  induce  him  to  retaliate  on  them.  "  We  will 
not,"  he  said,  "  be  barbarians  because  they  are."  And  yet, 
when  Congress  grappled  with  the  matter,  and  expressed  in 
unmistakable  sentences  that  the  wicked  and  cruel  conduct 
must  stop,  or  it  should  be  visited  in  kind  on  their  own  men, 
it  led  at  once  to  an  exchange,  and  thousands  of  lives  were 
saved  by  the  utterance  of  a  more  determined  policy. 

At  the  terrible  massacre  of  Fort  Pillow,  the  world  stood 
aghast.  It  seemed  as  if  the  fiends  of  hell  had  escaped  and 
become  incarnate.  Butchery  ruled  the  hour,  and  in  its 
maddened  passage,  nature,  humanity  and  God  were  all  for- 
gotten. 

I  will  not  recite  the  details  of  that  horrid  occurrence ; 
but  you  will  remember  how  loud  and  general  was  the  de- 
mand for  retaliation  —  so  loud  and  clear  that  the  President 
heard  it ;  and  at  a  public  meeting  in  Baltimore  he  said,  that 


23 

if  the  facts,  when  fully  ascertained,  were  as  reported,  swift 
retribution  would  follow.  But  it  never  did  so.  The  black 
man  was  still  left  unprotected,  and  the  fact  that  so  few  black 
prisoners  have  ever  been  returned  to  us,  tells  but  too  plainly 
their  hapless  fate. 

But  perhaps  this  was  wise  and  well.  Sure  it  is,  no  cruel 
act  can  be  alleged  against  the  dead  Chief  Magistrate.  In 
him  the  divine  quality  of  mercy  shone  conspicuous,  and  no 
tear  was  ever  willingly  drawn  by  him,  no  drop  of  blood 
shed,  no  pain  or  anguish  inflicted. 

The  humblest,  the  poorest,  the  feeblest,  shared  his  sympa- 
thy and  love.  He  was  full  of  gushing  impulses,  and  if  he 
erred,  it  was  on  mercy's  side.  Allied  to  this  tenderness  of 
heart,  was  another  peculiar,  or  I  should  say,  notable  trait  of 
character — to  wit.,  his  mirthful  sociability.  Under  the  ter- 
rible pressure  upon  him,  his  nature  was  ever  still  bounding 
up.  It  had  wonderful  elasticity.  He  would  sit  down  to  the 
gravest  matter,  and  presently  you  should  hear  his  explosive, 
clear,  ringing  laugh,  at  some  pointed  story,  which,  like  the 
sunlight  on  the  storm-cloud,  lighted  up  the  darkness,  and 
perhaps  indicated  the  way ;  for  the  stories  always  had  a 
palpable  point  and  application.  Sometimes  they  were  ex- 
haustive. 

Not  unfrequently  they  took  from  the  dignity  of  the  magis- 
trate, but  they  always  illustrated  the  subject.  They  seemed 
to  me  like  the  safety-valves  of  an  engine,  which  prevented 
the  full  heart  from  bursting.  So  of  going  to  the  theatre. 
"  People,"  said  he,  "  may  think  strange  of  it,  but  I  must 
have  some  relief  from  this  terrible  anxiety  or  it  will  kill 
me."  I  have  sometimes  doubted  if  he  could  have  staggered 
under  the  weary  load  upon  him,  unless  he  could  have  re- 
lieved himself  in  some  such  way.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
this  trait  added  to  his  vitality,  and  sometimes  gave  him 
wonderful  power.  An  apt  story  or  happy  turn  not  unfre- 
quently disposed  of  the  argument,  and  sometimes  of  the 
combatant. 


24 

Tims  in  bis  great  debate  with  Mr.  Douglas,  the  "  little 
giant"  had  accused  him  of  tending  bar,  alluding  to  his 
keeping  a  grocery  store.  "  True,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  the 
Judge  and  I  have  both  tended  bar,  I  on  the  inside,  he  on 
the  out."  Mr.  Douglas  never  again  alluded  to  this  portion 
of  history. 

This  mirthful  habit  added  wonderfully  to  his  popularity, 
and  I  have  often  imagined  him  in  some  store  in  the  free 
West,  with  his  feet,  perhaps,  elevated  on  some  flour  barrel, 
setting  the  whole  company  in  a  roar,  and  the  delight  of 
everybody  about  him.  Let,  however,  no  one  suppose  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  a  trifler.  He  was  not  a  Nero.  He  pondered, 
he  weighed  the  apparent  consequences,  and  he  prayed  over 
the  mighty  interests  committed  to  his  charge. 

In  a  letter  to  a  lady,  September  6,  18(34,  he  says :  "  We 
hoped  for  a  happy  termination  of  this  war  long  before  this, 
but  God  knows  best  and  has  ruled  otherwise.  We  shall  all 
acknowledge  his  wisdom  and  our  errors  therein." 

He  was  grave,  at  times,  to  sadness,  and  the  deep  sigh  that 
would  sometimes  escape  him,  would  tell  how  that  great 
heart  was  troubled.  He  gave  to  the  country  his  almost  un- 
divided attention.  His  industry  was  remarkable.  No  two 
or  three  administrations  had  half  the  work  to  do  which  his 
had  ;  yet  he  found  time  for  almost  everything  —  did  it,  for 
the  most  part,  readily  and  well.  He  gave  great  satisfaction. 
Unselfish  and  unpretending,  he  labored  steadily  on ;  saga- 
cious in  conception,  skilled  and  shrewd  in  execution,  he 
accomplished  far  more  than  most  men  could  have  done,  and 
carried  the  country  safely  through  dangers  and  difficulties 
appalling  in  their  magnitude  and  complications. 

He  was  faithful  to  his  friends,  and  grappled  them  to  him- 
self with  "  hooks  of  steel."  He  was  constant,  and  not 
changeable.  If  he  had  once  taken  a  man  to  his  confidence 
he  held  him  there,  and  would  not  let  him  go.  Suspicion, 
slander,  reproach,  could  hardly  drive  him  to  change  his 
opinion. 


When  Mr.  Chase  resigned  the  Treasury,  and  he  felt 
obliged  to  select  another  for  his  place,  he  still  retained  his 
friendship  for  his  old  Secretary ,  and  made  him  Chief  Justice 
when  opportunity  offered. 

Here  let  us  pause  for  a  moment  and  remark  how  Provi- 
dence has  been  in  all  the  shifting  scenes  of  this  great  four 
years  drama.  Upon  this  same  high  court  —  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  —  in  the  first,  act  sat  a  man  as 
chief  who  from  his  high  place  had  declared  that  fifty  years 
ago  a  person  of  African  descent  had  no  rights  which  a  white 
man  was  bound  to  respect ;  and  for  that  reason  he  would 
accord  him  no  more  now.  But  if  he  did  not  respect  their 
rights,  God  did,  and  when  the  last  act  came,  and  the  rights 
of  these  men,  in  new  forms  and  aspects,  were  to  be  deter- 
mined, another  man  sat  in  that  high  place.  So  pass  we  on. 
"  The  mills  of  God  grind  slow,  but  they  grind  exceeding 
fine." 

But  not  more  faithful  to  his  friends  was  Mr.  Lincoln,  than 
he  was  kind  to  his  enemies,  or  those  who  opposed  him. 
With  what  a  gushing  heart  does  he  extend  the  hand  of 
friendship  to  his  "  dissatisfied  countrymen "  in  his  first 
inaugural !  "  I  am  loth  to  close,"  ho  says.  "  We  must  not 
be  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though 
passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of 
affection.  The  mystic  cord  of  memory,  stretching  from 
every  battle-field  and  patriot's  grave  to  every  living  heart 
and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the 
chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as  surely  it  will 
be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature."  Surely  he  had 
"  malice  for  none,"  but  "  charity  for  all."  Notwithstanding, 
however,  this  great  good-will,  and,  as  it  were,  beautifully 
combining  with  it,  ho  had  at  times  great  tenacity  of  pur- 
pose. He  came  to  his  conclusions  somewhat  slowly,  did  not 
determine  until  he  had  maturely  considered ;  but  when  he 
had  determined  upon  a  course  to  be  pursued,  he  followed  it 
4 


26 

closely  and  unflinchingly.  If  he  was  persuaded  he  was 
right,  he  took  no  step  backward. 

Of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  he  said:  "I  told 
them  in  September,  if  they  did  not  return  to  their  allegiance, 
and  cease  murdering  our  soldiers,  I  would  strike  at  this 
pillar  of  their  strength,  and  now  the  promise  shall  be  kept, 
and  no  word  of  it  will  I  ever  recall."  And  no  word  did  he 
ever  recall.  Though  he  is  dead,  that  proclamation  lives  in 
perpetual  verdure,  and  from  it  posterity  shall  gather,  in  the 
succeeding  ages,  fresh  leaves  for  his  chaplet  of  renown. 

In  intellect,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  far  above  the  average  of 
men.  He  had  rare  gifts  and  powers.  He  could  never  have 
reached  the  lofty  eminence  he  occupied,  without  them.  Born 
a  poor  boy,  in  obscurity,  it  was  his  natural  force  of  character, 
combined  with  goodness  and  a  love  of  learning,  which  grad- 
ually opened  the  way  to  him  and  made  him  equal  to  the 
"  occasion  sudden."  His  was  no  adventitious,  accidental 
popularity,  it  was  the  growth  of  rare  merit  and  ability. 
His  perceptions  were  quick  and  clear,  his  comprehension 
large,  and  judgment  deliberate  and  firm.  He  was  an  able 
debater  —  few  more  so.  He  saw  at  once  the  point  on  which 
the  question  hinged,  and  he  made  the  whole  debate  turn 
upon  it.  He  parried  readily  and  skillfully,  and  thrust 
sharply.  His  statements  were  always  clear  ;  his  language 
quaint,  not  always  elegant,  but  forcible  and  selected  for  his 
purpose.  He  always  seized  the  gist  of  the  subject,  and  with 
such  an  apparent  persuasion  of  its  truth,  that  he  carried 
conviction  to  his  hearers. 

If  eloquence  consists  in  the  graces  of  the  schools,  then 
had  he  little  of  it.  But  if  he  is  the  most  eloquent  man, 
who  in  speech  gains  his  point  oftcnest,  then  he  had  few  equals. 
And  this  was  alike  true  in  written  and  oral  discourse.  He 
could  write  or  speak  with  equal  readiness,  ease  and  force. 
Many  of  his  compositions  are  models.  For  the  occasions, 
his  two  inaugurals  can  scarcely  be  excelled,  while  his  paper 
on  the  subject  of  arbitrary  arrests  completely  exhausted  the 


ar 

subject,  and  did  not  permit  of  a  successful  answer.  Few 
men  could  hit  the  popular  judgment  as  he  could,  or  reach 
the  popular  heart. 

But  I  must  pass  on.  It  is  time  this  brief,  shadowy  sketch 
of  his  personal  character  should  close,  and  we  turn  for  a  few 
moments  to  the  acts  of  his  administration  ;  for,  to  determine 
his. greatness,  we  must  consider  what  he  has  accomplished 
even  more  than  what  he  was.  He  had  all  the  noble  quali- 
ties of  his  mind  and  heart  before  his  election.  They  made 
him  conspicuous.  His  acts  have  made  him  great,  immortal, 
and  with  these,  history  shall  embalm  him,  and  the  fame  and 
fashion  of  the  man  shall  thus  endure  till  history  and  litera- 
ture shall  have  perished  together. 

Could  anything  be  more  cheerless,  dreary  and  dishearten- 
ing than  the  prospect  before  this  noble,  calm  and  resolute 
man,  when  he  assumed  the  executive  chair  ?  Half  of  all 
the  square  miles  over  which  the  government  rightfully  ex- 
tended and  over  which  he  was  called  to  execute  the  lawTs, 
wras  the  scene  of  a  wide-spread  revolt,  ready  to  burst  into  a 
flagrant  rebellion.  There  Avas  a  conspiracy  to  overturn  the 
government  within  that  territory,  and  to  set  up  another  in 
its  place.  The  leading  men  were  engaged  in  that  conspiracy, 
and  fearfully  in  earnest  to  make  it  successful.  They  seized 
upon  the  machinery  of  the  State  governments,  and  set  it  to 
work  to  accomplish  their  design.  They  first  withdrew  them 
from  the  Union,  and  then  combined  them  against  it.  They 
created  new  legislatures,  formed  a  new  Congress,  enacted 
new  laws,  and  soon  made  it  fearfully  apparent  that  if  the 
national  supremacy  was  to  be  maintained,  the  laws  executed, 
and  the  integrity  of  the  nation  preserved,  it  was  to  be  done 
by  force  and  arms.  But  how  by  force  and  arms  ?  "  Before 
you  can  march  armed  men  into  the  South  to  subjugate 
them,"  said  their  friends  in  the  North,  "  you  must  march 
over  our  dead  bodies." 

Where  was  the  force,  and  where  the  arms  for  the  purpose  ? 
Anticipating  our  necessities,  the  army  had  been  sent  into 


28 

remote  quarters,  that  it  should  not  be  at  hand  for  use.  The 
officers  were  resigning,  thus  weakening  it,  and  going  over  to 
the  insurgents,  thus  strengthening  them.  Arms  were  plun- 
dered from  the  arsenals,  not  only  that  they  might  not  be 
used  by  us,  but  that  they  might  iisc  them  against  us. 

The  government  had  fortifications,  yards  and  forts  in 
various  sections  of  that  country,  which,  had  they  been  held 
in  our  possession,  might  have  served  as  footholds  and  bases 
of  operations.  But  by  either  a  weak  indulgence  to,  or  a 
wicked  complicity  with  treason,  they  had  been  left  with  fee- 
ble garrisons,  notwithstanding  repeated  warnings,  and  they 
had  been  seized  and  were  held  against  us. 

Eight  millions  and  more  of  people  were  combined  against 
us,  in  a  country  admirably  fitted  for  defence,  and  into  that 
country  we  must  go,  occupy  and  hold  it,  or  the  rebellion 
would  be  a  success.  They  were  a  brave  and  fighting  people, 
skilled  in  weapons  and  delighting  in  their  use.  They  had 
a  fertile  soil,  yielding  abundance,  and  a  product  which  the 
world  sought  and  paid  for.  They  had  labor  to  secure  that 
product ;  railroads,  boats  and  rivers  to  bear  it  to  market. 
They  had  ports  to  deliver  it,  and  if  allowed  to  be  sold  and 
delivered,  they  would  supply  themselves  not  only  with  the 
necessities  and  comforts  of  life,  but  with  all  the  material 
of  war. 

But  how  could  we  prevent  its  being  sold  and  delivered  ? 
Their  country  was  full  of  rivers,  and  bays,  and  ports,  and 
to  those  places  foreign  ships  would  come  and  bear  it  away. 
Will  you  blockade  those  ports?  How?  Where  are  your 
ships?  In  foreign  seas.  Your  navy  is  not  only  small,  but 
absent.  Blockade  the  ports  !  They  have  thousands  of  miles 
of  coast,  and  all  the  fleets  now  in  the  world  could  scarcely 
suffice  to  do  it,  even  if  foreign  nations  would  not  interfere. 
But  they  will  interfere,  it  was  said.  They  must  have  that 
product  which  the  South  lias  to  sell,  and  their  necessities,  if 
not  their  inclinations,  will  compel  them  to  do  it.  That  they 
would  rejoice  to  do  it,  no  one  doubted ;  that  they  would 


29 

seize  the  slightest  occasion  as  an  excuse  for  it,  all  believed ; 
and  that  they  would  take  advantage  of  our  difficulties  and 
divisions,  all  feared.  Here,  then,  are  no  armies  to  over-run 
and  occupy  the  rebellious  country,  and  no  ships  to  blockade 
their  ports. 

These  armies  and  these  ships  must  be  had,  or  the  work 
given  up.  Men  must  be  raised  and  armed,  ships  procured 
and  manned,  or  the  national  integrity  cannot  be  preserved. 
But  how  can  this  be  done?  There  is  no  money  in  the 
Treasury  with  which  to  hire  men,  purchase  arms  or  mate- 
rial, or  build,  buy,  or  charter  ships. 

Was  ever  a  nation  so  helpless,  and  so  unprepared  for  an 
emergency  like  this  ?  Strong  in  numbers,  rich  in  resources, 
we  were ;  but  men  were  not  organized  into  armies,  nor 
the  resources  shaped  into  ships,  forts,  arms,  or  munitions  of 
war.  They  must  be  so  before  used,  and  to  this  task  he  first 
addressed  himself — calmly,  silently,  fixedly,  heroically. 
There  was  hesitation,  but  no  shrinking  —  moderation,  but 
no  lack  of  will  —  caution,  but  no  fear. 

How  well  he  did  his  work,  history  will  tell.  With  the 
aid  of  the  men  he  called  about  him  —  "facit  per  aliuni, 
facit  per  se"  —  he  covered  the  ocean  with  ships,  and  com- 
pelled foreign  nations  to  look  on  and  maintain  their  itching 
neutrality,  with  no  intervention,  open  or  avowed  —  while 
he  shut  up  the  rebellious  ports.  He  supplied  the  Treasury 
with  the  necessary  funds.  He  fought  these  armies  and 
shifted  their  commanders,  until  victory  followed  victory  — 
and  they  occupied  most  of  the  revolted  territory.  He  dashed 
his  ships  by  the  forts  at  New  Orleans  and  Mobile,  and  run 
the  batteries  at  Port  Hudson  and  Yicksburg,  and  scattered 
the  enemy's  ships  at  Memphis.  He  carried  the  flag  at 
Lookout  Mountain  up  among  its  fellow  stars,  and  compelled 
Sumter  to  bow  its  head,  and  receive  it  again  on  its  shattered 
battlements.  He  crushed  the  rebellion,  and  preserved  the 
government  of  his  country. 

Nations,  through  all  time,  shall  accord  his  triumphant 


30 

"virtues,  his  wisdom,  and  his  success,  and  high  on  that  pillar 
of  fame,  where  they  have  enrolled  the  name  of  the  Father 
of  his  Country,  they  will  inscribe  that  of  its  Saviour. 

But  not  wholly — perhaps  some  would  say  not  chiefly  — 
docs  his  claim  to  honor  or  applause  rest  on  the  successful 
administration  of  the  government  under  great  difficulties. 
He  overcame  and  put  down  the  rebellion — that  was  great 
merit ;  but  in  doing  it,  he  struck  at  and  destroyed  the 
cause  —  that  was  greater.  He  preserved  liberty  by  destroy- 
ing slavery.  He  made  all  future  rebellions  for  the  same 
object  impossible.  He  washed  from  the  nation's  escutcheon 
its  deepest  stain.  He  knocked  off  the  chains  from  the  limbs 
of  more  than  four  millions  of  his  "  fellow-countrymen,"  and 
bid  them  stand  forth  in  their  manhood,  and  has  now  gone 
beside  Wilberforce  to  lay  these  manacles  at  the  feet  of  Him 
who  bids  us  all  "  undo  the  heavy  burdens."  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  in  all  climes  and  ages,  the  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation  will  be  one  of  his  crowning  glories. 

Thomas  Jefferson  penned  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence ;  Abraham  Lincoln  gave  it  a  wider  application  and  a 
truer  interpretation. 

Standing  in  Independence  Hall  in  Philadelphia,  on  his 
way  to  Washington,  he  declared  "  he  never  had  a  feeling 
politically,  that  did  not  spring  from  sentiments  embodied  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence."  "  If  this  country,"  said 
he  further,  "  can  be  saved  on  that  basis,  I  shall  be  one  of  the 
happiest  men  in  the  world  if  I  can  help  to  save  it.  But  if  this 
country  cannot  be  saved  without  giving  up  that  principle,  I 
was  about  to  say,  I  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot 
than  surrender  it."  Noble  martyr!  he  gave  not  up  his 
principle,  but  his  life,  to  save  it ! 

'•  The  patriot,  all  unused  to  anus. 
Bewails  the  clang  of  war's  alarms, 
Anil  mourns  the  angry  field ; 
But  when  his  country  calls,  he  flies, 
He  arms,  he  strikes,  he  dares,  he  dies, 
And  will  not,  cannot  yield." 

Wherever  this  gospel  shall  be  preached,  said  the  Saviour 


31 

of  men,  of  the  woman  who  anointed  His  head  with  ointment, 
this  shall  be  told  in  memorial  of  her.  So  wherever  shall 
be  spread  the  great  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, wherever  men  shall  love  liberty  and  hate  tyranny, 
wherever  men  shall  acknowledge  God's  justice  or  reverence 
his  creatures,  this  great  act  of  Abraham  Lincoln  shall  be  re- 
hearsed "  in  memoriam." 

Patriotism  and  gratitude  may  unite  to  rear  his  monument, 
they  may  lay  the  granite  deep  and  pile  the  marble  high  — 
art  may  come  and  chisel  it  into  the  most  beautiful  and  last- 
ing forms,  but  they  can  raise  no  such  structure  as  he  has 
buildcd  for  himself,  u.Exegi  motmmentum  are  perew/mfon." 

My  fellow-citizens,  Abraham  Lincoln  is  dead.  The  Presi- 
dent has  become  the  martyr.  He  has  finished  his  work  and 
sealed  it  with  his  blood.  For  his  fame  the  past  is  secure, 
and  the  future  radiant  and  glorious.  As  we  mourn  him  on 
this  day  of  national  humiliation  and  fasting,  how  beautifully 
appropriate  are  the  words  of  the  prophet : 

"  Is  not  this  the  fast  that  I  have  chosen  :  to  loose  the  bands  of 
wickedness,  to  undo  the  heavy  burdens,  to  let  the  oppressed  go 
free,  and  that  ye  break  every  yoke  ?" 

My  fellow-citizens,  the  first  thought  of  every  loyal  heart  is, 
how  untimely  is  this  death  ! 

For  four  years  he  had  toiled  in  anguish  and  sorrow  to 
subdue  the  rebellion  and  save  his  country,  and  now,  just 
now,  when  his  success  was  secure,  when  its  armed  foes  were 
surrendering,  when  he  had  been  —  not  as  a  conqueror,  but 
as  an  American  magistrate  —  into  the  capital  of  the  blatant 
confederacy,  and  had  returned  to  Washington  so  hopeful, 
and  humbly  rejoicing  that  peace  was  so  nigh,  to  our  sight 
"  how  hard  it  was  to  die  !" 

But,  my  friends,  God  has  higher  purposes  than  ours.  "We 
do  not  know  what  the  future  shall  yet  unfold.  A  man  may 
do  by  his  death,  what  he  cannot  possibly  by  his  life  —  and 
mourn  as  we  may,  and  as  we  do,  there  will  yet  abide  the 
deep  conviction  that  from  this  new-made  grave  there  shall 


32 

come  up  a  firmer  purpose,  a  renewed  strength,  and  a  more 
consuming,  sacrificing  patriotism,  resulting  in  great  bles- 
sings to  the  country. 

He  sleeps  well,  the  Commander-in-Chief,  with  hi*  soldiers 
—  a  shining  host  —  bivouacked  in  the  Elysian  fields,  picketed 
by  angel  bands. 

Do  you  say  ho  died  untimely  ?  "What  if  he  had  been 
slain  at  Baltimore  on  his  first  journey  to  Washington? 
What  if  at  the  first  battle  of  Bull  Run  ?  or  the  retreat  from 
the  Chickahominy  ?  or  last  Autumn  before  his  re-election? 
or  before  the  fall  of  Richmond  ?  or  the  surrender  of  Lee  ? 

Rather  say,  if  die  he  must,  that  he  died  in  good  time, 
and  when  his  death  could  bring  no  advantage  to  his  coun- 
try's enemies,  when  it  would  add  new  fervor  to  zeal,  new 
devotion  to  patriotism,  new  strength  to  Union  sentiment, 
and  an  undying  halo  to  his  imperishable  renown. 

"  We  tell  thy  doom  without  a  sigh— 
For  thou  art  Freedom's  nu\v  and  Fame's, 
One  of  the  few  immortal  names 
That  were  not  bom  to  die." 

Fellow-citizens,  these  are  times  of  strange  vicissitudes. 
The  passing  hours  are  filled  with  the  most  wonderful  and 
diverse  events.  One  day  there  come  the  booming  sounds 
of  victory ;  the  next,  Richmond  has  fallen,  and  the  third, 
Lee  has  surrendered.  The  cannon  roar,  the  merry  bells 
ring  out,  fireworks  blaze,  rockets  streak  the  heavens  and 
sparkle  in  the  sky,  and  joyous  men  and  women  shout  that 
peace  is  near.  Night  settles  down  on  the  land,  men  lie 
down  in  sweet  sleep  because  there  shall  be  no  more  fighting 
and  no  more  carnage.  But  night  is  startled  with  a  strange 
shuddering.  The  telegraph  whispers  in  the  ears  of  the 
sleepers  that  the  President  has  been  fatally  shot,  and  they 
rise  to  learn  in  the  morning  that  he  is  dead.  And  then 
those  bells,  but  a  few  hours  before  ringing  so  joyously,  toll 
the  requium  of  the  dead.  Everywhere  around  is  hung  the 
drapery  of  woe,  "  and  the  mourners  go  about  the  streets." 


33 

From  the  bights  of  joy  we  arc  plunged  to  the  depths  of 
sorrow.  To-day,  the  good  ship  sails  on  the  crests  of  the 
waves,  the  winds  fair,  the  horizon  bright,  and  "  all  sails 
drawing:"  The  next,  the  storm  howls,  the  spirits  of  the 
deep  are  loose,  the  ship  plunges  and  wallows  in  the  "  trough 
of  the  sea,"  and  the  sky  above  her  can  scarcely  be  discerned. 
But  it  is  a  comfort  to  know  the  good  ship  still  makes  pro- 
gress. She  is  tight  and  staunch,  no  part  broken.  The 
haven  is  in  sight.  The  mutineers  among  the  crew  have 
murdered  the  captain,  but  the  mate  stands  by  the  wheel, 
with  irons  for  the  feet  and  ropes  for  the  necks  of  those  who 
resist  his  authority,  and  he  will  bring  her  into  port. 

Sail  on,  "  sail  on,  O  Ship  of  Statu ! 
Sail  on,  0  Union,  strong  and  great! 
Humanity,  with  all  its  fears, 
With  all  its  hopes  of  future  years. 
Is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate! 
####### 

Sail  on,  nor  fear  to  breast  the  sea ! 

Our  hearts,  our  holies,  are  all  with  thee; 

Our  hearts,  our  hopes,  our  prayers,  our  tears, 

Our  faith  triumphant  o'er  our  fears. 

Are  all  with  thee  —  are  all  with  thee!" 

Fellow-citizens,  it  is  time  this  exercise  should  close.  I 
should  fail,  however,  to  accomplish  my  full  purpose,  and  to 
do  justice  to  that  deep  sense  of  religious  responsibility  which 
always  pervaded  the  public  life  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  did  I  do  so 
without  recognizing,  and  calling  upon  you  to  recognize,  the 
Providence  which  has  guided  us  in  all  these  great  and 
varied  events.  There  is  a  God  in  history,  and  His  hand 
marks  the  beginning,  and  progress,  and  ending  of  this  great 
struggle.  The  most  unobservant  see  it,  and  the  most  un- 
grateful acknowledge  it. 

Plotting  and  seeking  the  destruction  of  the  government 
for  twenty  or  thirty  years,  and  selecting  their  own  time  to 
attempt  it,  how  did  it  happen  ?  tell  me,  ye  who  can,  how  did 
it  happen  that  these  rebels  should  have  chosen,  above  all 
others,  the  accession  of  the  administration  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  for  their  purpose  —  a  man  cautious,  sagacious,  de- 


34 

termined,  persevering  and  unflinching  —  loving  the  Union 
so  dearly  that  he  would  almost  be  willing  to  be  assassinated 
to  save  it,  and  dying  without  a  murmur,  in  the  execution 
of  the  work  ?  How  did  this  happen  ?  Could  they  have 
chosen  more  auspiciously  for  ns,  or  more  unfortunately  for 
themselves  and  their  designs  ? 

Why  did  they  not  select  the  accession  of  Mr.  Buchanan's 
administration  ?  They  had  formed  their  designs  long  be- 
fore, and  they  knew  the  "  fashion  of  the  man.'"  Just  imagine, 
now,  the  attempt  to  have  been  made  then.  They  seize  the 
arms,  arsenals  and  forts  of  the  government ;  they  secede ; 
they  confederate ;  they  say  to  Mr.  Buchanan,  "  We  are  in 
earnest !  we  will  have  a  government  of  our  own  !  we  repu- 
diate your  authority!  we  arc  armed,  and  will  resist  force  by 
force !"  What  would  have  been  his  answer  ?  We  have  it 
in  his  message  of  1860. 

"  Has  the  Constitution,"  he  asks,  "  delegated  to  Congress 
the  power  to  coerce  a  State  into  submission  which  is  at- 
tempting to  withdraw,  or  has  actually  withdrawn  from  the 
confederacy  ?  After  much  serious  reflection,  I  have  arrived 
at  the  conclusion  that  no  such  power  has  been  delegated  to 
Congress,  or  to  any  other  department  in  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment." 

And  so  he  would  have  done  nothing  to  save  it,  and  the 
broken  fragments  of  the  Union  would  have  floated  away, 
and  been  driven  by  the  storm  whithersoever  its  fury  might 
have  carried  them.  Who  restrained  the  wrath  of  these  men 
until  it  could  be  made  to  praise  Him  ?  But  again  —  these 
rebels  were  determined  to  break  up  this  government,  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  preserve  it.  They  "  were  bent "  upon  a  govern- 
ment recognizing  and  perpetuating  slavery,  founded  upon 
it.  He  was  equally  bent  upon  saving  the  old  one,  whether 
slavery  survived  or  perished.  Said  he.  in  his  letter  to  Mr. 
Greeley,  August  22,  1862  : 

"  My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either  to 
save  or  destroy  slavery. 


35 

"  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  a  slave,  I  would 
do  it ;  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I  would  do  it  ; 
and  if  I  could  do  it  by  freeing  some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I 
would  do  that." 

But  upon  this  non-committal  ground  he  could  not  suc- 
ceed. Providence  had  its  own  purpose,  that  the  Union 
should  live  by  the  death  of  slavery,  and  through  that  door 
alone  could  success  be  attained. 

When  this  war  commenced,  was  any  poor  creature  more 
abject  and  pitiable  than  this  poor  slave  ?  One  side  did  not 
much  care  what  was  done  with  him,  and  the  other  sought 
to  rear  its  habitation  upon  his  woes,  and  fatten  and  grow 
rich  upon  his  blood  and  his  bones. 

The  war  went  on,  and  victory  and  defeat  intermingled 
and  swayed  hither  and  thither,  until  one  side  and  then  the 
other  —  they  who  had  neglected  him,  and  they  who  had  de- 
spitefully  used  him  —  were  obliged  to  call  him  to  their  aid 
and  beseech  him  to  fight  for  them. 

One  might  have  supposed,  if  I  may  so  remark  without 
irreverence,  one  might  have  supposed,  I  say,  that  Providence 
would  have  been  satisfied  by  compelling  us  loyal  men,  anti- 
slavery  men,  to  call  him  to  our  aid  ;  but  nay,  not  so.  Provi- 
dence compelled  the  slave  masters,  by  the  extremity  of  their 
necessities,  to  the  degradation  of  imploring  their  slaves  to 
aid  their  wicked  designs,  and  then  left  them  to  be  mocked 
by  their  refusal. 

When  the  war  closed,  the  slave  marched  a  freeman  in 
the  ranks  of  freedom,  beneath  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  and  he 
followed  with  streaming  eyes  and  grateful  heart  his  greatest 
human  benefactor  to  the  tomb.  But  these  men  —  they  who 
were  so  proud  and  noble,  haughty  and  imperious ;  they  who 
despised  the  democracy  of  numbers,  thought  themselves 
only  fit  to  rule,  and  attempted  to  set  up  the  aristocracy  of 
the  few ;  they  who  said  they  were  of  the  superior  race  and 
ought  to  govern  ;  they  who  were  so  powerful,  who  had  broad 
lands  and  "  herds  in  their  stalls,  whose  granaries  wheat  and 


36 

corn  filled,  to  whom  the  earth  gave  of  her  increase,  and  in 
whose  palaces  was  prosperity  —  these  men  —  what  an  awful 
retribution  has  overtaken  them ! 

They  have  failed  in  that  which  they  most  desired ;  and 
now,  with  desolated  lands,  ruined  homes,  sundered  ties, 
spirits  broken,  they  wander  in  woods  and  forests,  or  hide  in 
swamps  or  among  the  mountains,  outcasts  without  hope,  to 
escape  the  punishment  of  that  government  whose  power 
they  defied,  and  which  they  attempted  to  destroy. 

Surely  there  is  a  God  in  history,  and  let  ns  reverently 
give  thanks  that  He  has  made  its  pages  at  last  so  eloquent 
and  brilliant  for  our  beloved  country. 

And  now,  in  closing,  over  the  grave  of  our  martyred 
President,  let  us  renew  our  fealty  to  this  flag.  It  has  been 
consecrated  by  the  death  of  many  a  soldier,  and  is  now 
baptized  in  this  richest  blood.  It  has  waved  in  victory  and 
drooped  in  defeat ;  but  now,  "  full  high  advanced,"  it  shall 
sail  every  sea  unchallenged,  and  command  the  respect  of 
every  land.  "Wherever  it  shall  go,  there,  too,  shall  go  a 
purer  Christianity,  and  a  better  civilization  —  the  frecdman 
shall  bless  it,  and  the  oppressed  seek  unto  it.  "We  will 
raise  its  starry  folds  on  high,  and  no  man  shall  dare  to  strike 
it  down. 

"  When  Freedom  from  her  mountain  hight 
Unfurled  her  standard  to  the  air, 
She  tore  the  azure  robe  of  night, 
And  set  her  stars  of  glory  there ; 
She  mingled  with  the  gorgeous  dyes 
The  milky  baldric  of  the  skies. 
And  striped  the  pure,  celestial  white 
With  streakings  of  the  morning  light. 
*****        *         #        * 
Flag  of  the  free  heart's  only  home, 
By  angel  hands  to  valor  given. 
Thy  stars  have  lit  the  welkin  dome, 
And  all  thy  hues  were  born  in  Heaven. 
Forever  float  that  standard  sheet! 
Where  breathes  the  foe,  but  tails  before  us, 
With  Freedom's  soil  beneath  our  feet 
And  Freedom's  banner  streaming  o'er  us. 


H.  E.  H. 

DUPL 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 

973  7L63D2C54E  C002 

EULOGY  ON  THE  LIFE  AND  CHARACTER  OF  A8RA 


30112 


03 


809095 


